The Weird Link Between Your Parents & Your Partner

Every once in a while research pops up that claims people often end up with sexual and/or romantic partners who look like one of their parents. Usually this research is pretty heteronormative and focuses on the idea that straight women end up with husbands who look kind of like their fathers or straight men bring home women who look just like mom.

Whatever these studies are trying to say about our lives and their oedipus-like qualities, they're generally pretty easy to brush off and move on — after all, it's doubtful that many of us are consciously looking for someone who reminds us of our parents.

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But the latest study in this iteration is slightly more nuanced. Researchers at Glasgow University aren't saying that we want partners who look exactly like our parents, just that it's likely we'll end up with someone who has the same eye color as one of our parents. And this time, the study isn't restricted to straight people, Yahoo reports.

The researchers asked 300 people about the eye color of their parents and the eye color of their partners. They determined through this (relatively small) sample size, that straight women and gay men are more likely attracted to people who have their father's eye color, and that straight men and gay women are more likely attracted to people with their mothers'.

Now, let's just take a second to think about this. Obviously, their findings aren't going to be true for everyone. I, for example, am a gay woman who has mostly dated people who have brown eyes, just like my dad. So even though I have been attracted to people who have the same eye color as one of my parents, it's not the parent this study says should be my inspiration.

Then, of course, there's the fact that they only asked 300 people (75 of each gender/sexuality), which is hardly a strong sample size of the whole world. And even if those 300 people were perfect representations of how everyone chooses sexual and romantic partners, let's remember that there are only so many eye colors to choose from anyway.

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If you think about it, most people have either brown eyes, green/hazel eyes, or blue eyes — though some people's eyes can also look more grey. So, if your parents have two different eye colors like mine do (my dad has brown, my mom has hazel), then you've already knocked off two of three possible eye colors. The odds are good that you'll end up with someone who has the same eye color as your parents, just because that's how probability works.

Still, there might be some truth to the researchers' claims that this is another example of "sexual imprinting," a theory that claims we learn what characteristics to find sexually attractive from our parents. After all, these studies do keep popping up.

Our advice: Just don't think about it too much. You're attracted to whoever you're attracted to, and if that person happens to look a little like your dad around the eyes, then so be it.